This One is Hit Out of the Park!

This is the kind of review that performers dream about getting. Theresa Clark hit this one out of the park for me. Thank you, Theresa...


“You bought the poetry to life. You combined your experiences in each poem that you shared with the boys and girls.

“I enjoyed your delivery. You have such excitement and energy when sharing.

“I enjoyed the presentation. You involved the boys and girls which allowed them to be active listeners throughout the assembly.”—Theresa Clark, 3^rd grade teacher, Elizabeth Cady Stanton Elementary School

Ship ahoy! Follow the Light!

I really enjoy collecting quotes. I started as a very young writer by writing down quotes from Reader’s Digest that was delivered to my parent’s household. Here is one by Robert Penn Warren:

“Insofar as writing goes, the writer’s fundamental attempt is to understand the meaning of his own experiences. If he can’t break through to those issues that concern him deeply, he’s not going to be very good.”

Free Poetry Contest: Build Myself A Winning Poem in Rochester, NY!

Poetry Insider presents... 

A special poetry contest

                              for kids in the Rochester area!

Have you seen this new video, 

Build Myself in Rochester, NY?

Kids age 5-18. Enter this special poetry contest during the month of July 2011 to win a $50 Amazon gift card! Simply watch the video, write a poem about one (or, I guess, more) of the places pictured in that video. Send the poem to jsottile@frontiernet.net by July 31, 2011. 
Contest entries will be published both on this blog and on KidsOutAndAbout.com.

YOUR “BUILD A WINNING POEM IN ROCHESTER” should:

1. Be directly connected with the above KOA video in terms of topic.

2. Any age student from 5-18 may enter.

3. Your poem may rhyme or not.

4. It may have more or less than 30 lines. Long poems are not necessarily better than lean ones.

5. Strive to connect with the emotions of your readers in the Rochester area. Write from your heart.
6. Send your best version of the poem by July 31 to jsottile@frontiernet.net  Poems after that date at midnight will not be accepted.

7. Please make sure that you write BUILD A POEM CONTEST IN ROCHESTER in the subject area of the e-mail.  And write your name (as you want it to appear next to your poem), your age,  and where you live.

8. After entering your poem, pat yourself on the back for entering. Why? You were brave by stepping out of your comfort zone by sharing a piece of yourself--a polished poem. 

Here are some great ideas to get you started thinking about how to write a poem for this contest:

Poets love to play with words and take the ordinary and make it special. Poets love to tell little stories with as few words as possible. Poets are dreamers. Poets don't always make sense. Do you know a few Nursery Rhymes? This is one that I like:

"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again!"

I like the sound of "Humpty Dumpty" and it's repeated in the second line. I enjoy saying it twice. The poem usually comes with an illustration. So I know he's a rather large egg. And he must have been important because all of the king's horses and men tried to put him back together again. Such a silly story inside a poem! But why do you remember it? The end words rhyme — wall and fall, men and again. The rhyme helps you remember the "story" in the poem. So what have you discovered so far?

• It's okay to be silly in poems and rhyme words.
• Poems can tell mini-stories about a big fat egg or more--such  as a special place, building or an experience in a special building. You can do that in your poems!
• Write from your heart to capture the hearts of your readers!
• Repeating words in a poem is fine, as long as it sounds good.
• To make sure you poem is good, you will need to revise and read it aloud again and again to yourself.

In the poem, "The Wheels on the Bus," we are told eight times in the first four lines that the wheels go 'round and 'round, but that's okay. It just makes the poem more fun. Many songs can be written down on paper because they are really poems set to music — just like "The Wheels on the Bus." In my poem "Dad Says He's King of the Castle," I have mom laughing "tee-hee-tee-hee" nine times. (Pages 53-54 in Picture Poetry on Parade!) And when I visit schools, kids love to chant mom's line with me. That convinces me the line really works.

Don't forget the winner will be awarded a $50 Amazon.com Gift Card!

Back-Pocket Poetry

What follows is the beginning of a wonderful poetry lesson by a talented inner city teacher, Matt Amaral; it's his lesson, experience, and introductory paragraph. The connection for the whole article is below the next paragraph.

"Looking back on the year so far, I’ve decided to write about some of the best lessons I’ve done in the hopes it will give you ideas you can use in your own classrooms. I’ve made a category for it called “Lesson Plans.” My plan is to fill it with lessons that went well in my English classroom where the students were completely engaged, and the end product was something we could all be proud of."


http://www.teach4real.com/2010/12/25/back-pocket-poetry/

The Book Festival (Part Three--About Gratitude)

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow."  That quote by Melody Beattie is one of my top ten favorites.

The Rochester Children's Book Festival feels like "home" to me because I have been there a number of times at my assigned table striving to get readers more interested in poetry and the ten-year-old inside me that writes poetry.

I feel very grateful to all those that contributed to this marvelous event, especially Sibby Falk, Kathy Biasi, MJ, Christine Horton, Natisha LaPierre and many Dedicated Volunteers, and many more unsung heroes of The Day. We were all showered on that Saturday  with sunshine, energetic readers, and happy adults. Those six hours at the festival were action packed with many memorable moments. For me, as indicated in "Part One", I meeting my personal writing hero, Steven Kellogg, who I first me in 1978 while he visited a school in the area. But my love for his books and my two daughters love for them didn't end there. When such talented writers and illustrators create a large body of work (like Steven), it is such a blessing! I am grateful to him and others like him who are both prolific and immensely creative. Our RACWI group is bursting proudly with many members that fit that description.

I am also thankful for the girl (about ten-years-old) who pointed to the two books on my table Waiting to See the Principal and Other Poems and Picture Poetry on Parade! And then she said, "I have this one and this one, and the one that's not on the table!" (The one not on the table--Bathroom Vacation--is out of print.) After that she ran off, leaving me with a moment to treasure.

Vivain Vande Velde is a member who I treasure because I first met her at my first children's book festival in 1999 sponsored by the Democrat and Chronicle on the grounds of the Memorial Art Gallery. I was happily selling my first book Bathroom Vacation under a large tent and encouraging the book lovers to read at least one poem along the way. If they did, 50% of the time they chose to purchase the book. This didn't go unnoticed by Vivian who was stationed nearby. After greetings were exchanged, she asked me if I would like to attend the Rochester Children's Book Festival which she was in charge of. Of course, I was over-joyed at that possibility, and I have been a member ever since. Besides being the person to ask any question about publishing, she is creative, prolific, funny, and charming. And she always shares a flood of photos from the festival--organized and labeled like a storyboard. Thank you, Vivian. You're quite an asset to the RACWI organization!

I also need to thank the Purple Balloon Lady, Debra Ross, and her helpers for making the day extra special for all our visitors. And, if you're not getting her weekly KOA newsletter, you're missing out on how much fun the Rochester area can be. And as RACWI' s special promoter, you're missing out on promoting what you do as an author or illustrator. In addition to her newsletter, promoting, writing, and being a wonderful mom, she is an excellent critic and editor. I certainly value what she has to say about poetry and writing in general. She can even make dreams come true such as reading your poetry on the radio! So you can sign up right here...

http://rochester.kidsoutandabout.com/email-list-signup.php.

I have one more quote for you. It's from Albert Einstein, "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."

I would consider it a small miracle if you signed up to be one of my "followers." Why would you want to do something like that? This blog isn't just about poetry. I am a former teacher, but I haven't lost my class forever. I love to perform poetry. I will come to any class for free in the Monroe County area, and I'll leave them laughing. After nine years of not teaching daily, I miss the kids and the ambience of the classroom. So the more people that know how eager I am to spread poetry, the more I will be sharing the joy of poetry. Poetry for kids is win-win.

At night I periodically share whatever I have learned during the present 24 hours right here. The more followers that I have, the more likely I will write at night before or even during the Charlie Rose Show.

It’s important for you to read this blog now and then because I need to write and find out what I know. That might sound a bit self-centered. But I am sure Anne Lamott agrees with me. She says, "We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason why they write so little."

According to Bonnie Friedman, "Successful writers are not the ones who write the best sentences. They are the ones who keep writing. They are the ones who discover what is most important and strangest and most pleasurable in themselves, and keep believing in the value of their work, despite the difficulties."

If I stumble across any golden writing nuggets, I’ll share them here first with you!

We are better than sheep lice.

Joe Sottile
joe-sottile.com

Break Through!

I really enjoy collecting quotes. I started as a very young writer by writing down quotes from Reader's Digest that was delivered to my parent's household. Here is one by Robert Penn Warren:

"Insofar as writing goes, the writer's fundamental attempt is to understand the meaning of his own experiences. If he can't break through to those issues that concern him deeply, he's not going to be very good."